


my body, the apple

by forochel



Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Canon Universe, M/M, Pining, oblivious idiots in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:22:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29327727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forochel/pseuds/forochel
Summary: Wonpil only presents in his late teens, which is inconvenient, to say the least.---Working title: "omega AU, wonpil pining" ft. me trying to write my way around the heat ex machina genre convention.
Relationships: Kang Younghyun | Young K/Kim Wonpil
Comments: 9
Kudos: 58





	my body, the apple

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bluetint](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluetint/gifts).



> **DISCLAIMER: This is a fictional work based on fictional representations of real people.**
> 
> Actual title adapted from Troye Sivan's Stud. just because I happen to be listening to it.
> 
> Thank you bysine for the often hilarious and always motivating encouragement! And happy BEAlated birthday, @bluetint!!! If you are to give away fun little ficlets on your birthday like a hobbit then you must be prepared for some reciprocity.

-

Wonpil only presents in his late teens, which is inconvenient, to say the least.

He used to hope for an uneventful transition into peaceful betahood, or even just to exist in this neuter state _forever_ , but that was before his baby scent (his grandmother's words, not his) suddenly started going haywire and made everyone around him sneeze.

"Are you —" Jae sneezes five times in quick succession. "Wonpilie, are you feeling — okay?"

If he were to be honest, Wonpil would have to admit he has had some premonition of this coming for a few months now. The squirminess, for lack of a better word; the way he's woken up so many times now with his blanket scrunched up between his thighs. The free-floating feeling in his belly that takes him off-guard every now and then. The giddy flush of his hormone levels fluctuating.

Wonpil shrugs and tries to edge along the mirrored wall to his keyboard, maintaining as wide a perimeter around Jae as possible. "It's uncomfortable, but I can live with it."

Jae sneezes anyway; he honestly looks more miserable than Wonpil. Wonpil feels bad about it; that he joined the company only to be confronted with a teammate going through a extremely belated, extremely volatile maturation a few months in. Awkward.

"I'm sorry, hyung" — he ducks down to turn on the power — "Really."

"No, no, it's not your fault." Jae pauses, clearly searching for the words in Korean. "Are you ... worried? About ... what you'll turn out to be?"

"I don't care. I just want it to be over," Wonpil replies, just as his body does a new thing and his abdomen cramps. Wonpil may or may not fall over.

"Oh my god!" Jae exclaims, shooting to his feet. "I'm getting Sungjin."

Before Wonpil can stop him -- surely this will pass -- he's out of the door. And then Wonpil's just curled up on the floor hating biology.

So that's fun. At least, he reflects while one of the trainee managers is taking him along to the nearby clinic, this didn't happen on the bus in from Incheon.

\---

All things considered, it is of little surprise that Wonpil doesn't get the peaceful, unexciting presentation he dreamt of. The doctor said he had some kind of recessive gene that meant _he_ didn't get to be a nice, unexciting beta like the rest of his family.

"You are disgusting," says Jinyoung, nose wrinkled. Wonpil, admittedly covered with dried sweat from a game of football he snuck in after school, can't exactly refute this. "No, seriously, Wonpilie, you _smell_."

"I smell nice," he says primly. "That's like, biological. Omega facts."

"Facts, schmacts. A concussed, scent-blind panda would wrinkle its nose at you. Why didn't you shower before coming to the company?"

Wonpil frowns. Not much has changed, really, except -- except now he's more aware of the skin he's in, and how the way _some_ schoolmates look at him differently, and how -- how that means he doesn't want to shower in the shower rooms in school.

"I wiped off," he says. And nobody on the way into Cheongdam-dong said anything to him.

Jinyoung hums doubtfully, but something in his gaze softens.

"And anyway, Jinyoungie, _you're_ all sweaty and disgusting too."

Jinyoung came to bother him during a dance practice break. His hair is slicked back off his forehead with sweat, his t-shirt is sticking to ... everywhere, and he smells of his gingery scent-blocking deodorant, to be fair. Whatever Jinyoung was about to say is interrupted when the door of the practice room they're in swings open.

"Yah." Jaebeom frowns at them. "Break's over."

"Sorry." Jinyoung flicks Wonpil a look of conspiratorial exasperation. "We were just --"

"And I know you're friends but you shouldn't be alone with Wonpilie any more, should you?" Jaebeom interrupts, now looking over Jinyoung's shoulder at Wonpil. Wonpil shrinks despite himself. "People might ... gossip."

Jinyoung sighs, standing up. He knocks against Jaebeom's shoulder on his way out. "You're such a fucking neanderthal, hyung. Bye, Pilie."

There is a moment where Wonpil is genuinely frightened by the look of wild anger on Jaebeom's face, but then Jaebeom just -- just _looks_ at Wonpil and it gets sealed off. He gives Wonpil a rueful, apologetic smile and silently leaves.

Then Wonpil's just really annoyed.

\---

Other annoying things over the ensuing two years:

  * Finishing high school
  * Being abruptly dumped into the miasma of pheromones everyone's apparently been swimming around in
  * Sungjin swinging wildly between treating him the same way as before and ... whatever way he thinks he should be treating Wonpil
  * University
  * Waiting and waiting and waiting to debut
  * That one time Jae and him had a screaming fight, mutually dissolved into tears, and then got laughed at but for very different reasons
  * _Heats_



The thing is: everything else, Wonpil is fairly adept at sitting on, at folding away into a corner until it dissolves into muted memory.

But god, the sheer loss of _control_ that the heat involves, even with all the medical advances and whatnot to help -- it's awful, and so tiring, and takes up so much time, _and_ one time it dropped him right where he was standing.

It was in the middle of working on a song they all were really hoping would let them debut. And it came out of nowhere. Nowhere!

Wonpil remembers, vaguely, this happening to classmates in school -- but _schools_ were equipped with nurse offices and he had, in his ignorant bliss, sort of ignored all the carrying on.

"I want to go back to being a baby," he says one day after that mortifying incident, lying on the band room floor.

Younghyun comes into view. He's standing over Wonpil's head, peering down. His shirt is so loose Wonpil can kind of see up it. Wonpil wonders if he should tell Younghyun. Not that _he_ would mind, probably; he's in a weird exhibitionist phase with all his reported midnight sit-ups.

"Don't we all," Younghyun sighs. He folds to sit on the floor, slumping over so that his giant head is blocking out the low light. Right, because he's actually going full-tilt at university.

The weird thing about Younghyun is that ... he's been one of the few people to treat Wonpil _exactly_ the same way as before. Like nothing about Wonpil ever changed for him. Wonpil's grateful for it, and at the same time weirdly disappointed.

The only thing, maybe, is that sometimes Younghyun sinks down next to him, when he's exhausted from being an extrovert and/or a workaholic, and sighs. Relaxes all over like he's sinking into the wall at their backs, the floor beneath them.

"You should lie down on the couch, hyung," Wonpil said one time. "It's more comfortable there."

Already half-asleep, Younghyun just slit his eyes open. Across the scant few inches between them, he gave Wonpil the exact same teasing, fond smile he had given: (a) Jihyo when he had spotted her holding a bag of puffy rice snacks; (b) Bambam and Channie when they'd careened down the corridor straight into his torso the other day; (c) Wonpil himself, just the week before, when Wonpil had bought a bag of roasted sweet potatoes from one of the street hawkers outside the subway station.

"But Wonpilie, you always smell so nice and peaceful," he murmured then. He fell dead asleep in the next breath, oblivious to the way Wonpil's mouth had fallen open.

Other than that, though, Younghyun treats him the same way. Like right now, when he's started tickling Wonpil _without provocation._ Wonpil shrieks and rolls away, fetching up against the mirror of this converted dance studio, and starts laugh-crying for mercy as he fights back.

Far too long later his heart is still fluttering, long after Junhyeok came in after a vocal lesson and scolded them apart, lecturing Younghyun about _propriety_ while Wonpil made faces at Younghyun over his shoulder.

And so here's the most annoying, inconvenient thing of all. Maybe if Wonpil never presented this way, it wouldn't rankle so much — how _predictable_ it is. He wants to hate himself a little for it .

Apparently this low-burning preoccupation is only too obvious to people who've known him since elementary school, because one of his childhood friend asks five minutes into their catch-up: "Do you _like_ someone?"

"How can you tell?" Wonpil retorts instinctively, and then pales.

"Oh." Jiwon slings an arm around him. She's kind of unreasonably strong now for someone half a foot shorter than him, no thanks to having just finished her basic military training. "Not good, huh?"

Wonpil shrugs and sips at his iced coffee. "It's not _bad_. It's just. Annoying."

"Can you tell me who it is?"

He thinks about it — Jiwon is discreet and already knows so many of Wonpil's secrets, but — Wonpil shakes his head.

Jiwon gives him a long, long look. "Okay then. Whoever it is, they probably don't deserve you anyway, Wonpilie."

"It's just a crush," Wonpil mutters into his straw.

It is; it's just a stupid crush on his stupid friend-slash-bandmate-slash-roommate, who radiates such incredible alpha fuckboy energy even though he _isn't_ one, not really, and -- and maybe the stupid one is Wonpil, in the end.

"I work hard," Younghyun unnecessarily tries explaining himself one time when he's come home late at night. It's so late it's basically morning. "And play hard."

Wonpil didn't even ask. He didn't even _say_ anything when Younghyun slipped in through the front door, looking all ... all rakishly dishevelled from drinking with his university friends. And more, if the hickeys on his neck are any indication. All Wonpil has been doing is just _sitting_ on the _sofa_ and _short-sightedly_ eating his _early breakfast_.

Silently, Wonpil gets up to go get ready for his vocal lesson.

"Wonpil-ah, stop looking at me like that. Please?"

Let the record show that Wonpil has probably not even been looking directly at Younghyun. See: short-sighted eating, glasses still on his bedside table. Once within range, Wonpil gives Younghyun an unconvinced look and the rest of his breakfast. His stomach's feeling queasy all of a sudden. He doesn't want to vomit all over the nice coach he's meeting.

They're not allowed to date, but that hasn't really stopped Younghyun from fucking around. Though maybe he'd argue that he isn't _dating._ Everyone knows. Everyone in the team and who lives in the dorm knows. It's a miracle the higher ups don't know, or maybe they do and are turning a blind eye. Because -- because everyone also knows that their team exists in some weird in-between space with relation to idolhood.

Whatever. It's not like they've debuted yet, anyway.

\---

And then they do, and it's not Younghyun who gets into trouble.

Anyway. Wonpil's shocked, dismayed, angry, then he folds it all away with the rest of all the other bad things. Sits with them in the peace and relative quiet of his room. Sublimates them into song.

His room is shared occasionally with their burly manager-hyung who is a one-omega-myth-debunking machine, or with Dowoonie, who sometimes escapes Jae's sleep-talking to come cuddle.

"Uh," says their manager-hyung the first time he witnesses their little two-person puppy pile. "I feel like this should be inappropriate, but it isn't."

"I just like cuddling Dowoonie," Wonpil tells him. "He smells like baby."

"Hyung," Dowoon complains, "I'm twenty-one."

Behind Manager-hyung, the other hyungs are hovering in the doorway. Wonpil doesn't know what Younghyun would've been like -- _before_ , but he's just like Jae in this way -- never comes in without an invitation. Which is nice, compared to Park 'never heard of knocking' Sungjin.

"What do we smell like to you?" Younghyun asks.

"Like I don't want to cuddle you," Wonpil replies coolly, and buries his face in Dowoon's sleeve.

It is, of course a lie.

They spend so much of their lives together: at practice, in various composing mentors' studios, at home in their cramped little dorm. He's shared so many crisp early mornings and moonlit late nights with Younghyun, the two of them the most prone to pulling all-nighters and losing track of time in the studio. And Wonpil is crushingly aware the whole time of the gap between the persona that Younghyun performs in public and the Younghyun in these private lulls; he is crushingly aware of the way he wants it all to mean something special while knowing it cannot.

Jiwon, who's finished her military service and is about to go off to art school in France, asks him about how his crush is going. Wonpil sighs.

"Describe them," she says. "Describe how they smell to you."

Younghyun smells like clementine skins warm from the sun bursting with tangy sweetness to the touch; other times like black pepper and dark chocolate and stone fruit. It depends on the time of the day; his mood; whether he's turned his charisma on up to high or not.

When Wonpil's done, Jiwon squints at him and says, "You sound like you want to eat him alive, you weirdo."

He splutters and slaps her in the still-muscley arm. Because she is a _brute_ who knows _no mercy_ , she grabs him and hauls him down for an unmerciful revenge. After all the pummelling is over, Wonpil lies on his back and sighs out a long, low breath.

"Pack me away to France with you, Jingoo."

She shakes her head and laughs. "I would if I could, Wonpilie. I would if I could."

\---

Less annoying and more shameful:

Whenever Wonpil goes off to have his heat in peace somewhere not a flat containing three or four other human beings, he sneaks a t-shirt or hoodie belonging to Younghyun along with him. It's so easy to steal clothes anyway, with the mess that is the half-PC-bang-half-sleeping-room that their oldest hyung and maknae share. Younghyun, despite moving into the same room as Sungjin, still uses half the upper bunk as storage space.

He's not proud of it; it's not like he ever does anything _untoward_ ; and it annoys him that he _needs_ it, but it makes -- no matter how cosy heat clinics try to be, they're still just that. You can have all the rock crystal lamps and scent diffusers in the world, all the plush blankets covering thick, shock-absorbent mats to roll around on, but they're just. Lonely, foreign places, in the end. And Younghyun smells like old familiarity by now, comforting and exciting in equal measure.

Two things happen at the end of 2016:

One: Younghyun turns to him on the way down to their practice room after their fake radio show episode and presses a hand to his forehead. He's all indulgent concern as he says, "Wonpilie, is your heat coming? You smell super sweet, like strawberries". When Wonpil pinks up, Younghyun acts _even sweeter_ \-- it's terrible -- and hastens to assure Wonpil that he smells nice, it's just -- you know, is he feeling all right for practice.

Two: Wonpil goes to the doctor and asks for heat suppressants.

"I'm too busy this year," he explains to Doctor Hwang. "I just don't have the _time_."

She hmms and hawws and does blood tests, and everyone in the dorm is very impressed by all his plasters, because they're all _cowards_ , and then finally finally finally the doctors work out the ideal dosage for Wonpil. He has one last heat in the dead of winter, during which he dreams deliriously of strawberry desserts when he can think at all, and then the Every Day6 project crashes into high gear when Wonpil still feels like he's tottering around like a fawn.

He might still be wobbly on the outside, but inside Wonpil starts out the year with firm conviction. He _will_ Get Over It and it will be because he is Too Busy For Shit. He will be strong and unbenighted by a quarterly reminder of how much he craves more every time Younghyun slings an unthinking, friendly arm around him, and — Wonpil shakes his head hard.

First, Wonpil tries clinging onto Sungjin-hyung, who is _most disobliging_. He is so unhelpful Wonpil wants to kick him. Dowoonie would let Wonpil feed him! But Dowoon is on the other side of Wonpil's Problem and now Wonpil's committed to the bit and has to hand-feed Younghyun a ssam, and if Jae looks like he wants to die that is _nothing_ compared to how much Wonpil wants to on the inside.

Someone should give him an Oscar.

Unfortunately, Wonpil's resolve is tested right from the start.

It's not Wonpil's fault, if Younghyun will insist on carrying him around on a beach or running his fingers idly through Wonpil's hair to tidy it or — or filming an entire music video in a manic fugue state. During a break in filming, Wonpil puts the room between Younghyun's slumbering form and himself as much as he can, lest he just slide onto the sofa, lay Younghyun's head in his lap, foolishly declare himself to all the world.

It's not his fault if Younghyun will insist on asking, in that half-sincere half-teasing way, _why so pretty_ while zooming in on Wonpil's face. All empty flirtation. Wonpil's tired and wired and buzzing all over from impending summer heat and their proximity and —

It's not Wonpil's fault that Younghyun is so hard to get over, that his laughter is so warm and inviting in Younghyun's ears. It could be cruel, but it never is, and that's the hardest thing of all.

\---

When they break in June, Wonpil goes off the suppressants and right into the next available heat clinic.

It's never been like this before. He can't tell, in moments of lucidity, whether it's because he's delayed this for so long or because he'd decided to go cold turkey. He hates his past self for this, for _not_ stealing a t-shirt, when he's prowling around his room searching for a scent that just _isn't there_. The lack is an intangible emptiness that settles like bone-deep bruise.

One time, Wonpil wakes up whimpering "Hyung, hyung, _hyung_."

He rolls over to try and smother himself.

This heat isn't particularly physically painful, not any more than the others. But Wonpil's just sad. If before, having something that smelt like Younghyun to stick his nose into when he was aching and sore and just wanted to be comforted was a sweet-sour ghost, now it feels like there's a cavern in his chest. After two days of these ups and downs, he feels almost too sad and limp to do the necessary, hollowed out by yearning and regret. He is almost grateful whenever the heat crests and sweeps him away on a tide of hot, inexorable instinct.

During a low tide, Wonpil staggers out to the common pantry area in one of the fluffy robes that line the back of his door. One of the other omegas in there whom he usually sees around — they're weirdly synced up — looks taken aback when she spots him. She makes him sit down and gets him a hot tea, makes him drink soup out of the tureen that's always stocked up. Wonpil lets her fuss and tut over him, knows it's a way of self-soothing as much as concern. It makes him feel a little warm inside. Feels like an anchor, knowing that people care for him, even an almost-stranger.

Later, in the cold sobriety of the comedown, he feels ridiculous. Sad and like a fool, for having been so melodramatic. For very much evidently not having made any progress. Their second-oldest manager, who smells like freshly-cut grass and baby powder (like Dowoonie, but because she has actual children), keeps giving him hesitant looks across the dash but doesn't say anything. She stops by a street stall to get Wonpil a restorative tteokpokki.

"Do you want to visit your parents?" she asks eventually.

Wonpil finishes chewing quietly on his mouthful of fishcake. Everyone else is either in LA or Busan. Or probably out, on this sunny summer day. Going home right now when he is so sad would just invite questions that he doesn't want to deal with, possibly ever. And he misses his own bed, and the smell of his own room, and —

"No thank you." He leans his head against the window. "The dorm is fine."

It is fine, until he opens the door and sees Younghyun cross-legged on the sofa. Well, fuck. He really did think Younghyun might be out — doing school things, or hanging out with friends, or in the studio, or — or anywhere but here, at home on a perfectly lovely Wednesday afternoon.

"Ah!" Younghyun twists around, face already breaking open into a smile that summons an answering one from somewhere deep inside Wonpil. "Wonpilie, you're back! How are you fee — uh. You look ... tired...?"

Once shoeless, Wonpil drags himself over to the sofa. He collapses onto it, curls his knees to his chest so he can fit all of himself in next to Younghyun. If he inched any closer his head would be in Younghyun's lap

"Pilie..." Younghyun sounds cautious, smells — smells strongly of tart berry and black pepper. Wonpil's too tired, too bruised inside and out to figure out what that means. "Are — what — do you need to see the doctor?"

Wonpil sighs out the breath he held. "I'm going tomorrow. I think it was the suppressants."

Younghyun makes an unhappy sound. Then, horribly: "Can I touch you?"

 _Can he touch Wonpil_. It's not like he's ever bothered asking before. Why is he suddenly being so careful around Wonpil? Some horrible mixture of frustration and — and something twisting sour under his ribs makes Wonpil well up a little. In answer, he pushes the crown of his head against Younghyun's thigh.

"Aigoo." Younghyun's hand lands on Wonpil's head, warm and heavy. He pets Wonpil's hair. "It's like having a cat or something. Though Dowoonie _wishes_ his cat would be this comfortable with him, eh?"

Wonpil laughs, because it's true. Dowoon is stuck in the most tragic one-sided relationship with his cat. His breath catches as something in his side twinges — he must have pulled one of the muscles between his ribs at some point — and then the black pepper in Younghyun's spike scents just as he says, voice high, "Ah, I'm sorry! No, Pilie, stop laughing, stop, stop —"

It's being so worn out that is what helps Wonpil calm down. That and the way Younghyun's fingers have progressively tangled in his curls. Now that the hysterics have ebbed, Wonpil is free to hate how just having Younghyun nearby being all concerned and smelling all protective is soothing the hurt and heartache, even though it's not nearly close enough to what he wants.

 _Let go_ , he tells himself, even as Younghyun's fingers leave tingling trails on his scalp. _Let go, let go, let go._

\---

Summer consists of Wonpil overcompensating in the other direction.

It might sort of backfire, a) because Sungjin-hyung keeps giving him these disturbingly knowing looks and _lets_ him with minimal fuss; b) when Jae takes the teasing too far in their afterparty live at the Chinese-Korean place. He takes it so far Wonpil doesn't know what to say, and for some godforsaken reason Sungjin decides that it's the hyungline dynamic duo teasing time.

Jae does _not_ need any encouragement.

The other thing making Wonpil tense with anxiety is that he's squeezed in right next to Younghyun, since they're all sitting along on side of the tables like theyre at a press conference. Where he might've expected Younghyun to join in on the teasing banter — he never misses an opportunity to tease Wonpil after all — Younghyun is instead quiet.

Out of the corner of his eye, Wonpil glances at him. He looks abstracted, and tucked this close together, Wonpil can tell that there's an unhappy, sour tang to his scent. It's cheating, maybe, when Younghyun is usually so conscientious about controlling his scent.

"Stop it," Wonpil tells the hyungs loudly, especially Jae. "I understand more English than you think."

Jae 100% ignores him.

Wonpil is about to murmur a private _are you okay_ when he feels more than hears the silent sigh Younghyun heaves. It feels a little like a precursor to an intervention — maybe Younghyun will actually back Wonpil up, tell the hyungs to back off the teasing, the way he does from time to time.

But Younghyun doesn't say anything. Shovels another chopstick-full of noodles into his mouth.

Maybe he's just tired.

Wonpil wouldn't blame him, the way he's been burning the candle at both ends.

In any case, Younghyun perks up eventually. This is after he's consumed two gigantic bowls of noodles — if it were _Wonpil_ , he'd be flat on his back, entirely preoccupied with digesting. As it is, Younghyun just gets an energy boost, just in time to be all annoying. He rewards Wonpil's efforts to help him out with singing right into Wonpil's ear, hot noodley breath on Wonpil's ear and cheek, glee in his laugh lines, teasing and annoying and playful and —

And Wonpil likes him _so stupidly much_.

\---

"Wonpil-ah, are you back on the suppressants?" asks Younghyun quietly.

He's made his way over to where Dowoon and Wonpil are sharing a pack of chocolate biscuits during a practice break, backs turned to the ravenous horde of hyungs. Sungjin and Younghyung _totally_ count as a horde of two.

Annoyed and alarmed (see: snacks; Younghyun's appetite), Wonpil says, "What?"

"Your suppressants," Younghyun repeats. "The ones that made you so —"

"Yes, yes," Wonpil interrupts. There's a prickle along the side of his neck. Dowoonie's crunching sounds have stopped.

"Oh." Younghyun's brow furrows. "But — didn't you say you thought it, uh." Finally seeming to catch on about Dowoon's presence and Wonpil's desire to not talk about it, he presses his lips together.

Dowoon pipes up, then. "Hyung, do you want a cookie?"

"Dowoonie!" cries Wonpil. "No!"

Younghyun's entire expression lightens up when he laughs. "I'm fine," he says, before patting Dowoon on the head and going back to his bass.

After chewing contemplatively on three more biscuits, Dowoon says, "Is hyung okay? He said no to snacks."

Wonpil shrugs, just relieved that Younghyun backed down.

But he was relieved too soon, it seems — because the next thing he knows, Younghyun's called a band meeting about Wonpil's health.

Or, well, to be fair: he "shared his concerns" with Sungjin, who then called a meeting about Wonpil's health.

"I don't see why any of this is necessary." Wonpil kicks Younghyun under the kitchen table, who takes it manfully.

"If it's making you unwell, Pilie..." says Sungjin awkwardly. "I mean, a couple of days out ... we can work with it, you know?"

"It's not —" Wonpil pauses; he doesn't want Younghyun to know that he lied. Also, it's entirely possible that delaying his heat for months _did_ make it worse. "Have you _seen_ our _schedule_? And I'm _on them now_ , anyway."

"Yeah," Jae says unthinkingly, "I know, you smell like hospital, it's weird."

" _Hyung_ ," Younghyun and Wonpil say at the same time, in vastly different tones.

Younghyun turns to Wonpil, then, and says fast and low, "It's just — in June, after. You really didn't — uh, I could tell you weren't feeling great."

And what is Wonpil supposed to do with that? He wrinkles his nose, and is about to dig his heels in when Dowoon gives him the world's most mournful puppy-dog eyes.

"But hyung, you shouldn't make yourself feel like crap just for us?"

"Yes!" Sungjin exclaims with relief. "Exactly! It's not fair and we're not the kind of band that would do that to one of our members!"

Everyone else nods.

"It's my body," mutters Wonpil. Though, now that he's thinking about it, the sheer exhaustion of June's heat had been thoroughly, abnormally unpleasant. "I'll ask Dr Hwang if there's a compromise. It's not like I like being in heat either."

"Good. At the end of the day," Sungjin-hyung said, "your health is the most important, Pilie."

Which is stupid, because he was just _sad_. And Younghyun just picked up on it and he freaked out, apparently.

Except when the managers defer to his doctor's authority it turns out _she_ was concerned by whatever it was his hormones were doing after that sad, sad heat in June.

"You'll be throwing off the usual pheromones at this dosage level," Dr Hwang tells him after running through a whole slew of charts Wonpil barely understands. "So be careful about where you go alone. There's also a high chance that you'll run a mild fever, all the usual pre-heat symptoms. But you'll be mostly ... able to go about your daily life. It _will_ last longer than your full-blown heats do, though."

Wonpil grimaces and thinks wistfully again about being a baby. "I guess we'll see if this is preferable."

What _this_ means is that he ultimately ends up nesting for _days_ next to Younghyun's study table in the living room. He'll take it, to be honest; it's better than Wonpil staging a not-so-random hostile takeover of Younghyun's bed. _That_ would be a bit of dead giveaway.

"Pilie..." Younghyun peers down at him with totally unnecessary concern. "Are you sure you're comfortable there?"

Wedging himself firmer into the corner of the wall and the side of the desk, Wonpil glares stubbornly up at him. "Yes. I have lots of blankets and I took the couch cushions."

To be clear: Wonpil has completely denuded the couch.

"Okay ... you're just ... shivering even though it's not even that cold yet..."

"It's late at night. And it's just thermoregulation," Wonpil says grumpily. "This always happens. Go back to studying, hyung, I'm fine."

It's kind of a lie, because true to Dr Hwang's warning, the feverishness has persisted for far longer than he's used to. He hopes to _god_ this wears off before their fanmeeting tour.

"Always?" There's a strange note in Younghyun's voice. "But you've nev —" he cuts himself off with a throaty noise of frustration.

Wonpil looks up in time for his vision to go black.

It takes a second for him to realise, because he's busy freaking out about sudden-onsent blindness being some rare symptom. Then the overwhelming smell of Younghyun all around him obliterates all other thought. It's Younghyun's hoodie, dropped on his head.

"Take it," Younghyun says. "Your shirt's too thin."

Well. _This_ hoodie, freely given, is now Wonpil's forever then.

Wonpil pulls it over his head, luxuriates in the way it feels like he's being wrapped in Younghyun's scent. He pulls the hood over his head and squirms down so he's curled on his side, feeling a little guilty at the curling pleasure low in his belly when he buries his nose into the collar.

"Okay, now that does look cosy." Younghyun sounds amused. "I'm jealous."

He almost invites Younghyun into his blanket nest, and stops himself in time. Burrows into a blanket instead. Distantly, muffled by the hood and blanket over his head, he thinks he hears Younghyun huff out a laugh.

Wonpil eventually falls asleep, listening to the soft scritching of Younghyun's pen against paper, the tapping of his fingers on his keyboard, the absent low humming of their upcoming single.

When he wakes up to a beam of morning sun landing squarely on his face — he'd rolled over onto his back in his sleep, apparently — he finds that someone's wedged a pillow under his head and he's been covered with one of his blankets. The low-level thrum of arousal in his veins surges a little again, in tandem with the sudden thumping of his heart in his ears.

Someone in the kitchen sneezes. Sungjin emerges with a water bottle and Wonpil's bottle of pills. "Yah, Wonpil-ah," he says sleepily. "Don't forget your medicine. Your scent...it's like when you were presenting."

Younghyun emerges from his and Sungjin's room just then — Wonpil _really_ hopes he hadn't accidentally woken everyone up via sneezes — looking all tousled and swollen-eyed.

"Hyung, come on, don't tease Wonpilie about that time," he says in that sleep-gritted bassy just-woke-up voice that does _things_ to Wonpil — Wonpil grabs the bottle from Sungjin and dry swallows his morning dose. The raised eyebrows Sungjin gives him makes him feel hot all over with embarrassment anyway.

In the day's instalment of fun adventures in experimenting with one's hormones, Wonpil feels weirdly muted all day long. The disjointed feeling persists through practice and the spoil-live they film, and apparently it's obvious enough that later that night, when they're all back at home and Wonpil has crawled into his blanket nest again, Younghyun sits down on the floor just beyond the borders.

"Hey, Pilie...do you, uh, are you okay?" His eyes dart to his hoodie, which Wonpil has put back on. "You know, aside from the usual."

Confused, and making a wordless noise to convey as much, Wonpil glances around the living room. Everyone else has vanished into their rooms.

Younghyun takes a deep breath. "It's just ... Sungjin-hyung isn't really good at expressing his feelings, right, and I don't want you to get hurt."

Wonpil thinks he might sprain something from the conversational whiplash. "Wh...at?"

"I don't, uh." Younghyun works his jaw a little. "I've just noticed ... I've been thinking ... I mean, you remember when we had that afterparty at the Chinese place?"

 _Remember_ — of course Wonpil remembers! The excruciating embarrassment! The guilty thrill in his belly at the opportunity to press up so close with Younghyun! The hyperawareness of Younghyun's knee in his lap and arm slung along the back of Wonpil's chair!

"Yes," says Wonpil evenly. "It was only a few months ago, hyung."

Younghyun's face scrunches up. "Okay, point. I've just been thinking ... you know, about Jae's theories about the ... you know. The, uh, MV love lines...."

"The _what_." Wonpil brings his knees up to his chest. He has a bad feeling about this. "Okay?"

"Uh, I mean, you're such a good actor, Pilie, but I just thought ... what if Jae's right, because sometimes it seems like you do ..." Younghyun trails weakly off, probably because Wonpil is boggling at him.

"No," Wonpil says flatly. How ironic that his overcompensation has _apparently_ sort-of worked. Wonpil is _not_ liking any of this. "Jaehyungie-hyung is very not right."

"Oh." Younghyun looks mortified, as he ought to. After an awkward pause, he laughs helplessly and scratches the back of his neck. "Uh. Okay. Good. So ... are you, ah, still disregulated? Temperature...wise?"

Wonpil can't tell if he's grateful or not that Younghyun is so selectively idiotic.

"Yes." He burrows under the topmost layer of blanket. "Hyung, don't you have homework to do?"

There's a long enough pause that Wonpil starts getting nervous. Then he hears a sigh, Younghyun grunting as he presumably gets to his feet, and the chair being pulled out from the study table.

"Just think it's probably better for you in bed," says Younghyun after some typing, right when Wonpil's on the edge of falling asleep. "Or you might get sick."

Wonpil makes a grumbling noise and draws the blanket further over his head.

\---

He does get sick.

First, Wonpil catches a break of about a week after his heat finally breaks.

Then he promptly falls actually ill in America. This is _more_ _miserable,_ somehow; it's the sore throat and the clogged sinuses, and the way this time around he isn't allowed near Younghyun unless they are on stage.

"If Wonpilie breathes on you" — Jae bodily shepherds Younghyun away to their hotel room — " _you're_ going down, and then we'll all go down, and that's just not happening, Brian, it's just not."

"Come on, hyung." Dowoon loops Wonpil's arm over his shoulder like Wonpil can't walk. He does smell soothing, though; it hasn't changed at all, the comforting baby powder scent that Dowoon carries. "I'll let you have first shower."

The next few days spool out with Wonpil just trying to hold himself together and not succumb to the soporific effects of American medicine. One night, he hears Younghyun's voice indistinctly outside his hotel room door and almost — _almost_ climbs out of bed to fling it open.

"Hyung, where are you going?" asks Dowoon, emerging from the bathroom just in time to bring Wonpil back to his senses.

Wonpil, caught halfway out of bed, sinks back down.

"I ... need to tell Younghyun-hyung something about the arrangement for I'm Serious?" he fibs desperately. Wonpil's pretty sure he can pass the blush off as some kind of feverish flush.

Dowoon purses his lips. "Well, you can tell me and I'll tell him."

Yawning, Wonpil wriggles further under his covers. He actually feels very sleepy, now that he's fully horizontal. "'S just ... the voicing ... n'er mind."

Dowoon is thusly relegated to playing messenger, Sungjin and Jae playing keepaway until Wonpil's out of the contagious phase.

It's unconscious, at this point, the way Wonpil will think of something and turn to Younghyun. The way he expects to be able to whisper whatever takes his fancy into Younghyun's ear, whenever he wants. The way he expects Younghyun to be _there_ , available and attentive.

Maybe, Wonpil thinks one night, hot water beating down on his shoulders and washing hairspray out of his hair, this is practice for the future. For some nebulous time when they've all grown out of living in each other's pockets, and Wonpil no longer gets to pretend.

Here's something else: Jae inexplicably takes up staring at Wonpil and saying _I don't get it_ so many times that sometime between New York and Detroit, Wonpil snaps _it's you and your stupid American germs_ at him through sad little sniffles. Jae just laughs at him.

On the plane to Toronto, Younghyun fetches up next to him. Wonpil now being deemed safe enough for immunocompromised alphas to be around, apparently. Ducking close so that Wonpil can hear him over the hum and general chaos of the plane being boarded, Younghyun asks, "Are you really feeling better?"

It's stupid how the question warms Wonpil through, even though they both know he must be; see: Younghyun being allowed to stand within a metre of Wonpil. Wonpil _feels_ something in him relax; _knows_ this is objectively a very bad sign. Nevertheless, he tilts his chin up, the movement more reflex than intention now, from all the times he's wanted to tell Younghyun something on stage mid-concert.

"Yes, hyung." He can't help but smile wider at the relief writ clear on Younghyun's face. It's nice, even when he knows that it's purely as a beloved dongsaeng. Despite himself, he feels like a sunflower arcing towards the warmth of the sun, unwilting.

\---

There's a bakery cafe somewhere in the back alleys of Jongno-gu that is hanok-themed, plays nice ambient music, and has all kinds of secluded corners for the inveterate introvert. It's also very quiet this early in the morning, and smells of pastries sweetly puffing up in the kitchens.

It is in one of these corners that Wonpil is pretending to work on lyrics. He is, in actuality, on a long distance call to France.

"I don't know how to stop," he says to Jiwon quietly.

It just spilt out, after the usual _how've you been_ s and updates on their family.

Apparently Jiwon has met her soulmate; a Belgian wood sculptor who sounds about as chilled out an alpha as Jae-hyung and apparently decided they wouldn't bother with the gender their parents decided on before their maturation. Just like Jiwonie did. Wonpil has just concluded that this means Jiwon has been meant to be in France all this while.

Anyway, somehow they got from that to Wonpil's Problem, and —

"It's been a long time, huh," she says after a long pause.

Wonpil stirs his latte restlessly. He makes no reply. He _has_ no reply.

"You know, Pilie ... maybe you should just come clean."

Wonpil makes a sound that approximates the appropriate number of exclamation marks he just felt in his soul.

She sighs. "Just think about it, okay?"

"Okay," he says, entirely without meaning to.

But it sticks in his head. The thought of just confessing.

"It's not a bad idea," Jinyoung says, when they meet up. "Or, oh, oh! I could try and make him jealous for you!"

"You alphas," says Wonpil in the exact dismissive way he knows will annoy Jinyoung, "are all the same in the same stupid way."

"That's reductive!" snaps Jinyoung.

"So is assuming that hyung will get jealous." Wonpil pauses. "And who're you going to use to make hyung jealous, anyway? Mark-hyung?" That might work, because Mark is so terribly beautiful Wonpil gets all shy and flustered around him no matter what. "Or, oh, _Jaebeom-hyung_?"

Jinyoung shoves a hand into Wonpil's face. "No! Ew! I meant _me_!"

Wonpil cracks up. There's no way anybody would fall for that.

He's grateful for it anyway, since all he has to do is think about Jinyoung's ridiculous idea to give himself a laugh. Because — because as much as Wonpil tries to keep up his positive disposition — because everyone seems to appreciate it and rely on it — he is. He is sad, sometimes.

Everyone's a little sad sometimes, of course. But this — this feeling is just _always_ lurking on the edge of his awareness, inescapable. It can't be written away, bound up in words or chords, exorcised in song. Wonpil's tried — _god,_ has he tried. Despite his efforts, given voice it just seems to unsettle him, storm past the dykes he's put up, flood him so.

Here is the burden of heartbreak and having to bury it; here is the acute acknowledgement that this is all self-inflicted.

Anyway.

All of which is to say: sometimes Wonpil just wants to have a good pine.

\---

The problem is, sometimes where and where Wonpil feels a good pine coming on isn't always up to him. Not when he spends basically his _entire life_ in close proximity with his Problem. Nothing for tripping him into a mood like that unjustified jealousy chewing at the shores of his composure, whenever he glimpses Younghyun being ostensibly flirty with a stylist noona, or a techie hyung, or — or whatever. It's stupid. He knows it's stupid, feels the acid sour fizzing in his belly, and just has to go find a corner to curl up in and pretend to nap in.

The other problem is that Younghyun has stupidly sensitive olfactory senses.

At least half the time, he'll come find wherever Wonpil's squirrelled himself away and interrupt Wonpil's wallowing with _questions_.

Questions like _Wonpil-ah, did someone disturb you_ and/or _do you want a hug?_ and/or _do you want an egg sandwich I saw extras_.

The other _other_ problem is that Wonpil just can't help himself under the sunspot of Younghyun's concerned attention, so he always just burrows in. Despite the original problem being the person hugging him. Or, well, Wonpil's wayward heart.

("It's got to be your heart," Jinyoung once said, gesturing crudely. "Sure can't be your —"

"Shut _up_ ," snapped Wonpil, emphatically disinclined to try and defend Younghyun's fuckability. It would only encourage Jinyoung.)

Wonpil might also dampen a few t-shirts from time to time.

Sometimes, while Wonpil is clinging, Younghyun asks, "Do you want to talk to me about it? You know, get it off your chest?", though it seems mostly a matter of form by this point, like he's intuited that Wonpil would rather die than tell _him_.

And so when Wonpil's only response has been to shake his head, well. Younghyun always pats his back; always says, "Okay, okay, just let it out."

So there's the stress of all _that_. There's also the exponentially compounding stress of writing and rehearsing and performing for coming up to twelve months straight. And the strawberry on top of the stress-cake — because of their jam-packed schedule in the run up to the end of the year concerts, Wonpil has gone back on full-strength suppressants. So he has been feeling particularly on edge for months now, because all this playing around with his hormones.

Dr Hwang, it must be noted, did try to warn him.

All of which is to say, Wonpil has been tired and stretched thin and worn to snapping point.

Said snapping point comes when Wonpil gets into a little tiff with _Dowoonie_ of all people, nitpicking at his part in the I'll Try _a capella_ , is told to lay off by their leader, and then storms off into the backstage warren of the Yes24 Hall.

He's partway through just sitting with this maelstrom of _feelings_ and trying to sort through them when there's a tentative knock on the door of the small, empty dressing room that Wonpil found.

It's Younghyun. Of course it's him.

"Hey," he says. "Uh. Are you ..."

Wonpil opens his mouth to ask how the hell Younghyun tracked him down when Wonpil just smells faintly like hospital disinfectant, apparently (thanks, Jae), but the words get stuck in his throat at the way Younghyun's looking at him. It's part worry, part fear, and part something entirely unknown. Something that strikes uncertainty into his heart.

Mutely, Wonpil holds his arms out. Hoping.

The uncertainty builds unpleasantly, like a rising tide of vinegar in Wonpil's chest, until Younghyun huffs out a breath and strides over to where Wonpil's been huddled in a corner of the dressing table.

"Dowoonie's not angry anymore, you know," Younghyun murmurs. He's holding Wonpil so delicately — probably because he doesn't want to unduly wrinkle Wonpil's stage clothes or smudge Wonpil's stage make-up. But still. Wonpil wants an excuse to bury his face properly into his front, suffocate himself in Younghyun's wine-dark scent, heady and all-encompassing.

Wonpil makes an angry noise. "Well, _I_ am."

Rocking them from side to side, like he's trying to physically soothe Wonpil — like Wonpil's a literal baby, which honestly continues to seem like the ideal state of being — Younghyun asks, "Why?"

 _Why_ is way too complicated, way more than just Dowoonie choosing to dig in his heels and making _stupid_ unthinking comments about his perfect pitch and hitting a nerve Wonpil hadn't even been aware of. _Why_ would involve having to explain the past few years of heartache underscoring the _everything else_ of trying to make it as a band in Korea's oversaturated pop market.

"I don't _know_." Wonpil's voice embarrassingly breaks, then. Frustrated tears start in his eyes, slide down his cheeks despite his best efforts to hold them back.

"Ah." An edge of panic creeps into Younghyun's voice, the familiar old black pepper scent spiking along with it. "Okay, okay, it's okay, Pilie. Just cry. This hoodie's black, anyway."

Wonpil giggle-sobs into the soft, thick cotton of a hoodie he's pretty sure has accompanied him to a heat clinic before. His belly clenches with vague guilt then. After this is all over, he decides. When the concerts are over and they get a break, he'll explain properly.

"You think I'm funny?" Younghyun puts on his faux-affronted voice. "Now you're laughing at me?"

Wonpil shakes his head, tightens his hold around Younghyun's middle. And since his make-up is fucked anyway, he buries his face properly into Younghyun's sternum. Younghyun starts a protest, bites it back, continues rocking them.

And that's how Jae stumbles across Wonpil literally in Younghyun's arms.

"Uh," comes his distinct English from the door.

"Hyung!" Younghyun twists to face Jae. "We —"

"Sorry to interrupt, kids," Jae interrupts. Wonpil is so exhausted and also now so relaxed he can't even get up the energy to be embarrassed. "But the fifteen minute call is in like five minutes."

 _Fuck_ , the fucking _show_.

But Younghyun just pats Wonpil on the back soothingly. "We're coming, don't worry," he says, like this is normal and unremarkable and maybe it is? Maybe Wonpil's just lost sight of all perspective. Everything's just so freighted now.

Wonpil, his thoughts and Younghyun make it to the dressing room just in time for Younghyun to change into his stage clothes and Wonpil to get his make-up retouched, the stylist noona tutting over his tear tracks the entire time.

In the wings, Dowoon shuffles over to give Wonpil a hug, and then their stage manager is calling go, and then they're hurrying to their instruments to the roar of their fans.

And then the one joyful constant in his life: Wonpil gets out on stage and forgets everything else for a blissful three hours.

\---

The dorm is silent and still when Wonpil opens the door.

But of course: the Busanites were still home, and Jae went home to LA for another visit. Younghyun was probably still sleeping or out eating his way into a coma somewhere.

Just in case, he tip-toes into the kitchen to lay down his burdens: glass boxes full of his mother's kimchi, spicy pork ribs, leftover nodku-jeon, stewed lotus root in sweet soya sauce, rolled omelette, spinach shiny with sesame oil, and various other banchan — enough to feed Wonpil until his heat strikes.

His parents did say he could stay with them, but the dorm is closer to the clinic he frequents and — and he doesn't want to go into pre-heat at home, where his parents are. It feels strange and uncomfortable, now that there is a specific _person_ he's latched onto, ever since the last time he had been at home for this.

Also, and Wonpil's belly twists a little with guilt, there are precisely zero Younghyun's-clothes stealing opportunities at home. He doesn't want to go through that horrible, horrible experience from June again. He'll tell Younghyun _after_ this heat. He will.

He's just quietly shut the fridge door when a raspy "Wonpilie?" from behind makes him jump.

"H-hyung!" Wonpil whips around, stumbles a little off-balance into the fridge. "You're — um —"

Younghyun has clearly just woken up — his hair's standing up on one side, there's pillow creases along his right cheek, and the neck of his sleeping shirt is askew. Also, there's the matter of his voice.

"Catching up on sleep." Younghyun comes closer, still blinking stickily, and for one delusional moment Wonpil thinks he's going to _kiss_ Wonpil hello — but then he's brushing past and making for the mugs over the sink. Right. Of course.

Wonpil opens the fridge again, just to cool his cheeks. And, uh, check on how he arranged the boxes. The structural integrity.

"Sorry for waking you up," he says into the cold safety of their fridge.

"It's fine, I'm hungry anyway. Oooooh, is that your mum's cooking?"

Wonpil straightens up in alarm and turns around with a stern _It's mine!!!_ ready to go, when the words catch in his throat. Younghyun's standing _so close_ ; he must have been peering over Wonpil's shoulder. Wonpil, distracted by his own tumultuous thoughts, didn't even notice. Incredible.

He's gently displaced to one side so that Younghyun can inspect the boxes, and only regains his tongue when Younghyun actually starts pulling out the box of spicy pork ribs.

"Hey!"

He's hit with the world's most piteous look; it's so cute and pathetic Wonpil almost wavers.

" _No_ ," he says, and almost pokes Younghyun in the nose. Wonpil gives him a light push in the shoulder instead, and leans in to push the box back into place. " _Mine_."

It's a tactical mistake, because Younghyun just draws in a deep breath, eyes curving with amusement and — god, that's the leather in his scent deepening and they are _way too close_ if Wonpil can smell him so acutely — and says, "Ah, pre-heat, hmm?"

In Younghyun's just-woke-up voice, that's positively lethal.

"No." Wonpil straightens hastily back up and backs away. Retreats into brattiness. "Just plain old 'hyung will eat all my food if I'm not careful'."

Younghyun just laughs. "Right, sorry," he says shamelessly, but sets about pulling out things for stovetop ramyeon anyway, so Wonpil counts it as a win.

"Hey," Younghyun says in between shovelling ramyeon into his mouth a while later. "But seriously though, Pilie, you're not doing that weird drawn-out heat thing again, are you?"

Wonpil, admittedly also eating some ramyeon he'd stolen off Younghyun, shakes his head. "Doctor said I should just ... reset properly."

Younghyun hums in acknowledgement, before glancing out of the kitchen window. "Can't believe it's already dark."

"Hyung, that's because you woke up at five."

Laughing, Younghyun reaches out to put more spam in Wonpil's bowl. "I have a lot of sleep to catch up on. Honestly, I could probably just sleep again after this."

Wonpil stares at the slice of spam that he didn't even have to fight for. "Um. Hyung, you can eat this, it's okay..." There's a funny feeling in his chest, a weightlessness in the pit of his belly.

"You eat," Younghyun says easily, eyes creasing. "I can fry more later."

But he doesn't — he just takes both their bowls to the sink to soak after they're done and then goes to shower, leaving Wonpil alone in confusion. Wonpil washes their bowls and chopsticks and the saucepan, for lack of anything better to do, and then fretfully wanders about the apartment feeling like there's something _missing_ or something just on the edge of his memory. Some message he should have received but missed by the tips of his fingers.

He comes out of his second fugue state of the day to find that he's started piling cushions and pillows into the space between the study table and the TV console again, even though Younghyun's finished his degree. And also that he's shivering, even though the ondol is on and his feet are nice and toasty warm.

It's a good thing, Wonpil decides, as he drags his winter-weight blanket out to his nest, that he came home today.

Younghyun takes it all in stride, too, when he emerges from his room with his towel around his neck and his hair dripping in his face, to what must be a familiar sight by now.

"So it _was_ pre-heat," he says mildly.

"No," Wonpil retorts grumpily, rueing his lack of presence of mind earlier — he should've stolen a sweater or something while Younghyun was showering. "It was really because you were going to eat all my food."

"I wouldn't have eaten all of it," says Younghyun, famed midnight hoover-upper of fridge leftovers.

"Hmph." Wonpil sinks into his nest, buries himself up to the nose. Puts his earphones in and puts his playlist on, but not soon enough to _not_ hear Younghyun's huff of amusement, or his muttered _Ah, cute_.

Wonpil isn't cute, he's a fucking hate goblin soon to be up to the eyebrows with sex hormones. He turns the volume on his phone up.

So it is that over the couple of days, Wonpil spins rapidly towards his full blown heat. He keeps the managers updated, and they assure him that there are several clinics that they have reserved in case of any drop-outs. Tell him to keep them apprised.

Wonpil sighs and drops his phone into a puddle of throws.

His head feels light, his gut feels light, and he _knows_ he's warm to the touch. Younghyun's been skirting around him since he came home from the gym on the _second_ day Wonpil came back to the dorm, and took a long inhale that had the _both_ of them blushing when they realised what he was doing. But in a space as small as their dorm, it was inevitable that they'd brush past each other. Younghyun tried giving him an ice pack and Wonpil laughed so hysterically, Younghyun got huffy. He laughed because otherwise he'd probably have just plastered himself to Younghyun.

So: in strange inverse symmetry of the last time they were alone in the dorm together, Wonpil is miserably in pre-heat.

"Pilie." Younghyun doesn't even look up from his laptop, where he's ... playing minesweeper or watching a movie or something. "Wonpilie, do you want to come up on the couch with me instead? It won't be as cold."

Right, Wonpil's been shivering under layers of blankets for the whole evening. It's not the ondol's fault, it's him. Also, it's just very cold outside. There's condensation forming inside their windows. But he's got his nest constructed just so, never remembers how he does it, and it's just — it's a complex _operation_ and _structure_.

"Or not." Younghyun looks up at last, frowning slightly. "Sorry, it's just a suggestion, it's not —"

"Fine," snaps Wonpil, and heaves himself, the cushion he's been curled around, and the blanket he's had tucked around himself upright. The other blankets and his duvet kind of just slough off him. He thinks he hears a stifled chuckle, but he's too busy trying to make it the 5 metres across the room to the couch. This flu-like weakness in the limbs is a sign of some sort, but Wonpil is honestly too preoccupied transferring his nest to figure out what.

"Pilie, do you — I can help, if —"

Wonpil shakes his head hard, shoves a couch cushion back into where it originally is meant to be. Piles a thick, plus throw a fan gave him on top of it. "No. You don't know what you're doing."

There's another huff of laughter, but Younghyun looks entirely innocent and like he's concentrating on his laptop when Wonpil glances at him. Pursing his lips, Wonpil goes back to work.

After Wonpil has arranged to his personal satisfaction his layers of blankets, pillows, and one (1) sleeping bag they found ages ago in the old dorm's closet and everyone let Wonpil have because nobody knew who it belonged to, he crawls in, looks up and finds that:

  1. He has effectively colonised the entire sofa;
  2. Younghyun has been co-opted into his nest.



The look on Younghyun's face indicates that he is now coming to terms with his miscalculation. He also seems to be doing his best impression of a rock, like he thinks Wonpil's been building a terrarium. He also doesn't appear to be breathing at all.

"Hyung." Wonpil tugs at the end of a blanket that he thinks probably stretches over to where Younghyun's sitting cross-legged. At least he assumes that Younghyun is still cross-legged. He went into a bit of a fugue state there. "Hyung, you don't have to stay so still."

"I'm fine," Younghyun says, strained.

Wonpil squints at him, and then blushingly realises — oh, of course. He's never been in such close quarters with Wonpil before, pre-heat. Their couch isn't that big. Wonpil's socked toes would press up against the side of Younghyun's thigh, if he straightened his legs. And Younghyun, for all that the affection he's shown Wonpil hasn't ever really changed from the beforetimes, is still an alpha, still has that stupidly acute sense of smell.

Wonpil decides to focus on the webtoon he's been trying to read on his phone.

This works for maybe a few chapters.

"Are you meditating?" Wonpil asks at last — Younghyun's been staring blankly at the coffee table for ... well, the last two times Wonpil peeked at him. "You don't have to be around me, hyung, it's okay."

He sees Younghyun scent the air unthinkingly, shake himself out of it. Wonpil buries his face back under a blanket, so Younghyun won't see him blush. Again.

"Your nest is actually kind of comfortable." Younghyun wriggles a bit, pulls a cushion to his chest. "Honestly I don't know why you don't do this all the time."

"Because Sungjin-hyung and Jae-hyung would kill me for hogging the cushions."

"Oh, true, true." Younghyun laughed. It's like Wonpil never caught him zoning out. "Well, I mean, why don't you just get more cushions and replicate this on your bed?"

 _Because,_ Wonpil didn't say, _you're not there_.

"Mmmf." Wonpil wriggles further down onto his back and curls onto his side, pressing into the back cushions. He doesn't know why Younghyun's so _easy_ with all of this. Or, well, why he's trying so hard to be easy when he must be — well. Uncomfortable. _Wonpil_ knows how uncomfortable it is when your body just reacts in ways you wish it wouldn't. Wonpil closes his eyes and tries to will himself asleep.

"Yah, Wonpil-ah."

Wonpil reaches an arm out to pull his duvet over his head.

There's a soft sigh, and then a huff. What might be a pat on his calf, through layers of blanket. "Okay, fine. Sleep tight, Pilie."

\---

Wonpil wakes up to the world shifting around him. It feels like he's been caught in the way air trembles over overheated tarmac. He's dizzy. He's too hot. He's trembling. And the world _is_ shifting — and there's — oh, cool air rushing in against his skin, light making his eyes hurt. Younghyun's face filling up the range of his vision, worry carving lines and oh, that's not good, that's —

"Wonpil-ah," Younghyun's whispering. "I think your, uh, heat's here. I'm gonna call manager- hyung now to come and get you."

He pauses then, and looks at Wonpil expectantly.

All Wonpil can manage is a pitiful sound. He's uncomfortable. He's — he's abruptly aware of how empty he is, and how desire is now coursing insistently through his veins, and how Younghyun is too close. He's all Wonpil can see or smell and — Wonpil turns his face into his pillow, to try and block everything out.

"Ah, fuck." Younghyun hovers a second longer, before his footsteps patter away.

An undefinable amount of time later, he hurries back, crouches back down again. Wonpil opens one eye. The expression on Younghyun's face ... Wonpil doesn't know what to make of it.

"Okay, so ... don't panic" — Wonpil feels something seize up inside of him. He clutches at the pillow he's bodily clinging to — "But there's been a snowstorm going on for the past few hours. Manager-hyung said the heat clinics are all full-up because this is hitting a few days sooner than estimated and also the snow means no one on the team can reach you."

Blinking dizzily, Wonpil tries to parse out what Younghyun's _not_ saying.

"So ..." Younghyun's gaze slides away from Wonpil to the wall. "Uh, you have to. Stay here. I mean." He blushed, which was ridiculous; if anyone were blushing it should be _Wonpil_ , in this situation. Wonpil's hot all over, and so — so ready, there's no way Younghyun can't tell, when he can track Wonpil down in a concert hall.

Wonpil sighs. "Hyung..."

"I won't! I mean, public transport's still working, I can go see if I can stay with —"

Wonpil's grip on his control is slipping faster than he'd like, because his voice whips out before he can take it back: " _No_." He subsides at Younghyun's jump. "No, hyung, being alone is —"

"Okay, okay." Younghyun reaches out and pulling back abruptly. "Okay, I'll just go ... get breakfast started. You'll need food, right?"

He's right, but also Wonpil just wants a hug. Increasingly a creature made of instinct, Wonpil fights his arms free of the tangle of blankets around him and holds them out.

Younghyun visibly hesitates, consternation on his face. "Wonpil-ah..." he pauses, swallows hard. Stutters. "It's not that I — I mean. You just — I can, um, smell, you know, and —"

"I _know_ ," Wonpil half-whines. "I know, it's just a, a natural response. I know it doesn't mean anything." He's distantly proud of himself for getting that all out without crying or something similarly embarrassing.

"Ah." Younghyun stares at him. "Ah, um, I..."

While Younghyun is dithering, a scouring wave of heat breaks through the cradle of Wonpil's hips; he sticks his face into the pillow and whimpers into it. Never mind crying, he's already embarrassed.

"Okay!" Younghyun turns away. "I'll — I will, Wonpilie, I just — breakfast. Breakfast first, okay?"

Wonpil nods, face still mashed into his pillow.

It's only later, when Younghyun's sitting cross-legged atop Wonpil's nest and occasionally reaching out to steady Wonpil's hands around the bowl of microwaved rice topped with various banchan that he'd brought back, that Wonpil realises with some hysteria this might count as being brought breakfast in bed.

He gets about halfway through the bowl before his stomach flips, the background throb further down blooming into urgent insistence, and he has to stop, close his eyes and lean his head against the back of the sofa, breathe through it.

Younghyun's face is a _work_ , when Wonpil slits his eyes back open.

At least he caught Wonpil's bowl; it's now safely set aside on the side table.

"I can't," mumbles Wonpil. "Sorry, hyung."

"That's okay." Younghyun's own scent is rolling off him in waves, heightened in response to Wonpil, and it's just — it's not helping. "Um, do you have ... emergency supplies? Hyung said you should..."

Wonpil sighs and lolls into the back of the sofa, shutting his eyes against — the unjustness of _everything_. Of this entire situation. Of course he does. Who doesn't?

"I am so unprepared for this," Younghyun says aloud to himself. "Okay, um. Heat. Wonpil-ah, are you too warm?"

Wonpil nods.

"Okay. okay. I have an idea." And then — god, before Wonpil can even protest, he's scooped Wonpil up in his arms, at least three blankets trailing, and is staggering over to the living room windows and setting Wonpil down next to it. "The windows are cold?"

He's such an idiot. Wonpil's heart twists at the same time his gut does anyway.

"Okay," Wonpil says listlessly, and leans against it. It _is_ cool. It feels nice against his hot cheek, through the cloth of his hoodie. It would be nicer, Wonpil decides, if he just took his hoodie off and —

"Whoa, whoa, Pilie, you're —" Younghyun breaks off at the same time Wonpil gets stuck, and then there's that familiar, hated old huff of amused laughter again, before there's a tug and Wonpil is freed to press himself against the window.

Hovering nervously, Younghyun says, "Feeling better?"

"A bit," murmurs Wonpil. He can't bear to tell Younghyun it'll only get worse from here. He should lock himself into his room, but ... he's weak. If Younghyun's here, a solid steady presence, Wonpil can't make himself leave him.

"Good, good." Younghyun walks away to do — something, Wonpil doesn't know, and then he comes back. After a few rounds of this, Wonpil realises that he's just _pacing._ It's almost laughable, except that Wonpil's getting increasingly — increasingly _messy_ and he can't stop himself from trying to — this is. Bad. He has to go.

"Hyung," he says — sighs, more like. "I have to ... I can't be here. My room. Help, please."

They manage it, somehow — Younghyun lugging at least a third of Wonpil's nest into his room, piling it haphazardly on his bed, leaving his scent all over Wonpil's bedclothes. And then Wonpil wobbling, with Younghyun holding him up, into his room. To his bed. Which Wonpil promptly collapses face down onto and does not, miraculously, actually just start stripping atop.

"Okay. Is that ... all? I'll just ... go now? Hyung said I should separate — "

Try as he might, Wonpil can't help the whine in his throat.

"Pilie." There's a strange note in Younghyun's voice that makes Wonpil open an eye. "If you want..."

Wonpil may or may not kick his feet excitedly in the air.

"I mean, if it's more — " Younghyun pauses to swallow, while _his_ scent spikes, berry-tart and leather-musky. "I can stay with you, if you want. Hold your hand or something. If you need... Um. Make sure you don't dehydrate?"

There will be plenty of time for shame later. For now, Wonpil rolls onto his side and reaches out for Younghyun, lets himself say, " _Please_."

**\---**

Again, time puddles like honey, viscous and running slow.

There's only the heat: sweet friction, slick sliding down his bare thighs, his nose tongue lungs coated in the best thing that he's ever smelt, jewel-like berries and dark musk, spice-warm and thick. It's overwhelming, and Wonpil wants to bathe in it.

The desire, the clarity of a formed thought has him breaking back through to awareness, just as someone says, rough and low, _"Whoa_!" and there are abruptly hands on him — skin on his skin — so foreign when he's like this — Wonpil moans.

"Oh my god." There's a choking noise. "Pilie, I'm sorry, I swear —"

Younghyun — it's — Wonpil gropes blindly towards the sound of his voice, finds soft cotton, firm muscle under soft cotton, and tries pulling himself closer.

There's some fumbling, the bed dipping a little more towards where Younghyun must be, and then Wonpil's whimpering with his nose tucked against Younghyun's wrist.

"Um," says Younghyun. His voice is tight, like he's being strangled. "Pilie ... _Pilie_!" he yelps when Wonpil starts trying to nose into his crotch, chasing that enticing musk, pushing him gently away. "Pilie, you're not in your right — you don't — wait, wait!"

The rejection stings, cold and cruel.

"Go away, then," Wonpil snaps and rolls over to show Younghyun his back, abruptly so annoyed he forgets momentarily about everything else.

Unexpectedly there's a laugh, tinged with hysteria. A light blanket settles over him. Sticks to his skin.

Wonpil growls. "Go _away_." What use — what bloody _use_ — he doesn't get to finish the thought, when his nest shifts again. Younghyun getting off the bed obediently. _Seriously???_ He shrieks internally.

"Okay, okay. Just, um, come out when you need food."

There are awkward footsteps, away from the bed. Wonpil stays stubbornly quiet, even as his hips work away underneath the blanket Younghyun put over him.

"This is not what I thought omegas in heat would be like," he hears Younghyun mutter, right before the door clicks shut.

\---

So Younghyun goes, and it's worse. It's better and it's worse because Wonpil knows, bone-deep and especially once the first long, sustained high passes, that he doesn't want Younghyun to see him like this. Not if he weren't part of it. Wonpil knows he'd lose his mind and try to put a show on, try and tempt the alpha he wants into him; knows how fucking close he came to that earlier, all because Younghyun's too much of a soft touch.

Wonpil might anyway, because Younghyun's scent still hangs thick in the air, and Wonpil knows he's right there on the other side of his bedroom door.

Whenever his heat abates into a low simmer and Wonpil stumbles out looking for sustenance, Younghyun's there, looking mildly spooked and strained about the eyes. He doesn't know how to apologise for whatever he did while he was under, just silently takes whatever drink or food Younghyun hands him. He can't talk anyway, his throat dry and feeling like he's been screaming.

At other low tides, Wonpil wobbles outside just for a ... a break. The amplitude of his heat waves has never been so large before. The peaks are wilder; the troughs are calmer. He's so goddamn _tired_. He hopes this means the heat will break quicker.

And here's something else he'd never get in a heat clinic: cuddles.

"Is this what it's like in the heat clinic?" Younghyun asks one time, pressing firm strokes down Wonpil's back like he's trying to ease his trembling muscles. "You — it sounds painful."

Wonpil's half-sprawled over Younghyun, happy to take whatever Younghyun's willing to give him. Younghyun carefully tipped him half onto the sofa, when he'd shuffled towards where Younghyun was stretched out on the sofa with his earphones in, and just collapsed down onto him.

"Mm-mm. Not at all." Wonpil can feel the strength running out of his muscles under the gentle pressure of Younghyun's thumbs and knuckles. Even with Younghyun fully clothed, Wonpil wrapped in a fluffy bathrobe, the proximity is — he cannot help but shudder hard. Younghyun's quick inhale is loud in his ears, the way his thigh tenses under Wonpil unmissable. "This is nicer."

Snow is still drifting down outside, a whole day later. The whole world seems muffled by snow; it's gathered on the window ledge, cocooning the flat. Younghyun's questioning silence is louder in his ears for it. It has the quality of hesitation. Wonpil's too tired to chase after it; rubs his nose against the rough, unshaven skin bared between Younghyun's hoodie and his jaw.

Younghyun's long exhale is hot on Wonpil's ears. "Right. I'm — am I helping?"

Wonpil nods.

"Okay, good. Aren't there other ..." Younghyun's throat bobs as he swallows, his jaw shifting against Wonpil's cheek. "Other alphas who work at those clinics? My university chingu swears by —"

Wonpil shakes his head. He tried before, once or twice, but obviously they were put off by the scent of another alpha on his skin. It just came of living together in such close quarters. And it just wasn't the same. Wonpil never felt fully at ease, came out of those heats feeling more jittery and unfinished than he had alone every single time. "Doesn't work for me." He hiccups as a shiver goes through him at the sudden burst of — of something unpleasantly vinegary from Younghyun.

"Ah. You've tried?"

Wonderingly, Wonpil shifts to look up at Younghyun, the tense line of his jaw. What is this; this same upset from ... when was it. Wonpil can barely remember.

"I've tried almost everything." He closes his eyes and wriggles down so he can press his face into the warm soft join of Younghyun's shoulder. Rub his nose into the soft thick cotton of Younghyun's hoodie, which smells of their laundry detergent and him. "It just sucks every time."

Younghyun's hand pauses in the small of Wonpil's back; it's so — so close to where Wonpil wants his fingers, so hot even through the plushness of his robe, his fingertips pressing into Wonpil's flesh. "Right," he says. "Of course. I'm sorry."

Wonpil shakes his head and whimpers. That touch — it's too much. "I think I have to go back soon, hyung."

Being a good hyung, Younghyun makes him drink a sports drink first. Goes to the kitchen and brings it back, where he just moments before manhandled Wonpil upright, propping him against the corner of the couch. There's a long few seconds where he's just watching Wonpil drink and — it's hormones, Wonpil tells himself, swallowing the last of the grape-flavoured drink. It's pheromones and _nature_ and and he's already being such a brick and clearly not actually interested and —

"Wonpil-ah," Younghyun says slowly, playing with the empty bottle he just took back from Wonpil. "I will leave if this question makes you uncomfortable. But ... would it be different ... if I helped you? Uh, properly this time, I mean."

His eyes, when he meets Wonpil's gaze, are sharp with intent desire.

The surge of sheer, helpless animal want through Wonpil, the gasp he can't suppress, is probably answer enough.

\---

After it is all over, Wonpil is sticky and disgusting and falls out of bed trying to get to the shower.

"Wonpilie!" Younghyun, clearly woken up by the thump, appears over the edge of the bed. "What —"

Too embarrassed to realise his heat has broken, Wonpil hides under one of the blankets that had fallen off the bed together with him.

Younghyun's laughter is full of gravel, as are his words. "You're so cute." He pulls back Wonpil's blanket. Kisses him, like Wonpil isn't just tacky and smelly and has — his thighs are sticking together, and his hair's just a greasy nest, and — Younghyun kisses him harder, like he can tell Wonpil's thoughts are wandering, and Wonpil has to give in and kiss back.

"Cute," Younghyun sing-songs every time they part for breath. "Cute, cute, cute."

Wonpil considers the way Younghyun is super naked, super also covered in gross sex fluids, and super blanketing Wonpil.

"I thought you just meant it in a cute dongsaeng way," is what comes out of Wonpil's mouth.

Younghyun pauses. Looks down at Wonpil. "I do? But also ..." he leans down for another kiss, this one a little dirtier, and his fingers wander too, as though to emphasis his point. Wonpil shivers and yelps. He's sore. He's so sore, but — but in the pleasant, achey way one gets after a really good workout.

"Ah, it's broken?" Younghyun stops. Sits up on his haunches, now looking a little uncertain. Definitely kind of pink. Wonpil feels a lightness that has nothing to do with his heat being over. "I — sorry, I should've — it — I just —"

"Hyung," Wonpil interrupts, beckons him back down. Loops his arms around Younghyun's neck so he can whisper against Younghyun's lips, "I like you too."

Younghyun's mouth drops open. At this distance, even someone as myopic as Wonpil can tell that his lips are bitten red. There's a scattering of bites along his jaw and a great blooming bruise in the hollow of his neck. The nasty little thing in the pit of Wonpil's belly preens a little. Most of Wonpil just blushes instead.

"Oh," Younghyun croaks. " _Oh_. I thought —" he shakes his head hard, a smile growing on his face. "Really?"

"Yes." Wonpil shifts and winces; the floor is too hard against his poor, sore back. Younghyun's eyes flicker, and then he's abruptly turning them over, so that Wonpil's sprawled over him. "Oh, this is nice."

"Good." Younghyun pecks him on the nose. And then he inhales deeply, smiles in that soft, warm way that has always made Wonpil's belly flip-flop. Sighs out happily. "Ah, you smell so _nice_ , Pilie."

Wonpil fidgets. "I smell like I haven't showered in days. Because I haven't."

"No, you smell nice. You always smell nice to me." Younghyun laughs a little, sounding giddy with it. His scent is all brightly bursting citrus, now, fresh and only slightly deepened by those warm spice notes. "God, I've wanted to say that for _so long_ without sounding weird."

"You smell nice too, hyung. I like — um." Wonpil takes a deep, fortifying breath. "I used to. Um. Steal ... your clothes."

There's a bewildered silence from over his head.

"For ..." Wonpil forges on. "For ... to bring with me. To the clinics. It helped."

And okay, _that_ , that musky, dark, rich undernote in Younghyun's scent? Wonpil totally knows what it is now.

"Well." Younghyun pauses. Then laughs. "I — don't mind, obviously. Wonpil-ah, of course I don't mind. I just — how did I miss this?"

Wonpil shrugs. "I missed this too. You."

"We're idiots."

"Maybe."

"Maybe," Younghyun echoes. Then he smiles brilliantly. "But we got here in the end."

As always, his smile summons up an answering one from Wonpil. He's still sticky, still really wants a shower, but for the next minute or so he's going to think about how the path here has been nothing like the peaceful, calm life he had wanted all those years ago, and how he's just — so, so happy to be here at last.

"Yeah, hyung." Wonpil relaxes his cheek down onto Younghyun's bare shoulder, wriggles until Younghyun gets the hint and hugs him tight. "We did."

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> ~scent notes:  
> \- for wonpil: I took kang "i like sweet scents" younghyun and ran with it  
> \- for younghyun: "hyung's voice is sexy and stable, like red wine" cue me, wine afficionado, drawing on every single wine review I've ever read.
> 
> I tried so hard to keep this fic PG-13/T-rated. SO HARD. who knew?? in a fic with a main emotional plot point DURING A HEAT, that it would be impossible to keep things child-friendly! WHO. not this idiot. that's who.
> 
> all idiocy aside HEY hit the kudos! leave a comment! GIVE ME DOPAMINE PLEASE. also for once I made [the publicity tweet](https://twitter.com/forochel/status/1359387246248493058) immediately.


End file.
